Posted by DavidMitchell under agriculture, General News Comments Off on Milk, cheese, and Donald Trump
Like many of my friends and neighbors, I’m having a hard time coming to terms with the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency; however, I’ll dilute my despondency with joyful pictures from a current exhibit on West Marin’s milk, butter, and cheese industry.
To get our minds off politics for a couple of hours, Lynn and I on Sunday took a drive up the bay to Tomales where the Regional History Center on Saturday and Sunday afternoons is holding an exhibit: “From Milk to Butter & Cheese: 160 Years of Local Creameries.”
The exhibition is in conjunction with one showing through the end of the year at the Bolinas Museum. That exhibit is called, “Bounty: Fine Food Production in Coastal Marin from 1834 to the 21st Century.”
Seen in an historic photo from the Tomales exhibit, a rancher while milking a cow gives a cat a squirt.
Environmentalists I’ve talked with worry about Trump’s financial advisors’ denying climate change, calling for renewed coal mining, and sounding as if they’re willing to sacrifice public land for short-term revenue.
Latino families throughout West Marin are uneasy because many of them have at least one relative who might be deported under Trump’s anti-immigrant proposals.
M.B. Bossevain was Marin County’s first farm advisor. He is seen here in the Tomales exhibit standing in a patch of sweet clover.
Black acquaintances resent Trump’s lack of respect, and they fear he may appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn major civil rights victories. After all, Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News Network executive chairman who will be Trump’s senior counselor, is known for his white-nationalist views.
The Huffington Post quotes Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), as saying Trump’s choice of Bannon “signals that White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House….” It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion.”
I may not live long enough to see this country recover from the potential damage of a Trump presidency, but sometimes my mortality seems almost consoling. A neighbor, who has resigned himself to one or two terms of Trump, remarked today, “Well, at least I probably won’t live that long.”
In keeping with this melancholy mood, the country this week is simultaneously mourning the death of singer/composer Leonard Cohen. For the last two nights I’ve played his mournful, sometimes hymn-like, music during dinner, which made the meal feel like the Last Supper in a Parisian bistro.
A storage area for the Nicasio Valley Cheese Company (seen in the Tomales exhibition).
Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, History, Inverness Comments Off on Art in Bolinas, hail in Point Reyes Station, and Emergency Response Team training in Nicasio
Bolinas Museum Saturday opened an engaging exhibition of architecture, photography, painting, and sculpture. The featured artists who all have connections to West Marin included: David Korty, Ruby Neri, William Ransom, Noam Rappaport, Oona Ratcliff, Ivory Serra, Shelter Serra, and Ole Schell. The exhibition will last for two months.
Among the displays in the museum’s photography gallery are portraits shot around the world by Dana Gluckstein.
In her exhibit titled Dignity: Tribes in Transition, the focus, to quote the museum, is on cultures on the cusp of modernization.
A series of brief rainstorms hit West Marin last week but didn’t end the West Coast drought. On Tuesday hail fell at Mitchell cabin, causing no problems. In contrast, massive hail, some of it reaching the size of baseballs or larger, fell Wednesday and Thursday on parts of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, and Texas, the National Weather Service reported. _________________________________________________________________
The Mount Vision Fire 20 years ago destroyed 45 homes in the Inverness/Inverness Park area. These homes on Drakes View Drive in Inverness Park were in shambles after winds blew the wildfire down the ridge into Paradise Ranch Estates subdivision. (Point Reyes Light photo by David Rolland)
By Anne Sands, West Marin Disaster Council Coordinator
This year in October it will be the 20th anniversary of the devastating Mount Vision fire, also known as the Inverness Ridge fire. Recent earthquakes, like the one last August in Napa, remind us that disasters can happen any time of the year.
A major earthquake can hit anywhere around the infamous Pacific Ring of Fire, the great circle of tectonic activity created by the Pacific plate rubbing against its neighboring plates. And we in Marin are right on that Ring of Fire.
Get prepared before a disaster and learn what to do after. What about that disaster preparedness class you have been meaning to take? One of the best things we can do as responsible members of our communities is to increase the number of us who have learned basic disaster preparedness and response skills.
These skills include emergency first aid, basic fire suppression, communications, team building, and search and rescue. Immediately after a widespread disaster it will be impossible for our firefighters, EMTs and other qualified medical people to take care of everyone who needs immediate help. We must be prepared to extend the capacity of our local emergency responders by becoming trained Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members.
The fire departments of West Marin will offer a two-day CERT course on Saturday, May 16, and Saturday, May 30, at  5600 Nicasio Valley Rd. (the Marin County Corporation Yard) from 8:30 a.m to 5:30 p.m. Many Marin residents have taken these classes and are already involved in local disaster preparedness.
You can join your neighbors and friends to make our communities more self reliant and able to cope with disasters. There are no pre-qualifications for this training, and you do not have to be in ‘great shape.’ In a widespread emergency there are many ways to contribute your newly learned skills.
For 18 hours and $45, you can learn how to prepare yourself, your family, and your community to respond effectively. CERT class graduates receive a certificate and an Emergency Response daypack. Scholarships are available, and the classes are free to high school students
Pre-registration is required at www.readymarin.org or call Maggie Lang at 415 485-3409.
Get Prepared! Join CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team.
